The parties concerned discussed the procedures for EAPO to become an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examining Authority

On July 22, 2020, the World Intellectual Property Organization (EAPO) on procedural issues concerning the application of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) to become the International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) The second meeting of WIPO regional group coordinators was successfully held in the form of video conference.

The reason for holding the above-mentioned meeting is mainly because the spread of the new coronavirus epidemic on a global scale is still continuing, and the members of WIPO have previously decided to postpone all the important meetings of the WIPO Committee and between June and September 2020 Re-organize these meetings remotely.

The coordinators of the regional groups, EAPO representatives, some WIPO members and staff from the WIPO Secretariat discussed the process options for EAPO to be designated as ISA and IPEA under the current circumstances, the legal issues that may arise from the above procedures, and certain The actual cases and practices of these designated international institutions.

　　 In order to prevent the designation procedure from becoming too lengthy, the parties concerned reached a consensus at the 31st meeting of the PCT Technical Cooperation Committee and formally included the EAPO request on the agenda. The relevant parties will discuss this matter in a more flexible format in October 2020, and will further review the related work results at the PCT Union Assembly tentatively scheduled to be held in the first quarter of 2021.